i learned a lot thru the course of this election cycle. about myself. my view of my country and our system of democracy. about my friends and family. and about our citizenry at large. the good. the bad. and the downright ugly.
We haven't come a long way, we've come a short way. If we hadn't come a short way, no one would be calling us baby. ~Elizabeth Janeway
i started this election not a fan of Hillary. but i became one. no one is more surprised than me by this. and i'll tell you why. She is my mom. not literally, obviously. but she embodies the very spirit that inhabits my mother. and wow, does that make you really take another look at someone.
Hillary is 69. My mom is 70. they have been married to their husbands for the entirety of their adult lives. and they raised girl(s). their circumstances are certainly different, and their lives took very different paths. but at the end of the day, these are women who are just flat out STRONG. they grew up in a segregated America. when they were expected to stay home, cook & clean, and generally support their husbands. they were told by their mothers that a woman's place was at home. that their needs were secondary. that they had to look a certain way and act a certain way, because they lived in a "man's world". i can clearly remember having a conversation with my mom about pantyhose!! because she insisted they were necessary (in 1987). and while i fought her on it, i just realized that it was all she knew. because women were not even allowed to wear pants on the floor of CONGRESS until 1993!! make sure you stay "in your place", ladies.
My mom and i have not always gotten along. she is hard to like sometimes. she is abrupt and direct and opinionated. it gives you the impression that she is mean. which totally hurts her feelings. as it should. as i grow older - into a more direct, opinionated & abrupt woman myself - i realize that this is her camouflage. and her coping mechanism. do you know why she needs that? because my mom has spent her entire life putting other peoples needs before her own. she feels it is her JOB to give and give and give - because that is how she was raised. it was her DUTY. and she needs to guard against those who will take and take and then turn on you. she has been there. and been burned before. so, she will literally give you the shirt off her back if you need it. it just may not be given in the way in which you want it. and that, in a nutshell to me, is Hillary.
her innate need for control makes her seem unapproachable. she comes across as stoic. uncaring. she is careful when she speaks, for fear of offending or misspeaking - which makes her seem disingenuous. we are judging her based on a completely unrealistic, outdated, and irrelevant set of female standards. we find her LACKING because she is guarded??? how many of us would shine under that kind of microscrope? i am AMAZED - literally - that a 69 year old woman is being held to a 2016 standard by half the population & a 1965 standard by the other.
Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths. ~Lois Wyse
we want her to be perfect. isnt that the female ideal? we are supposed to be kind and gentle and thoughtful. keep ourselves looking great while raising our families. we are supposed to make life easier for those around us. AND contribute to society. lets not forget. we still live in a man's world. but now the man expects you to be a paragon of virtue, a perfect mother AND bring home ALMOST as much money as him. you cant make more - that's just not attractive. men judge her - and find her to be a bitch - a "nasty" woman. woman judge her for putting her career and ambitions ahead of her family. basically, we all just judge her. i think we all better start holding up that mirror and staring at ourselves a bit harder.
Not only is women's work never done, the definition keeps changing.
~Bill Copeland
is Hillary ambitious? obviously. THAT'S a GOOD thing! she started putting cracks in the glass ceiling before most of us even realized there WAS a ceiling. we tell our kids every single day that they can grow up to be ANYTHING they want. and still it is a struggle for them. Hillary, along with an entire generation of women, was told that that wasnt true. that they had a PLACE. and that is was secondary. the fact that she had (and still has) the gumption to push back against those boundaries demonstrates the very IDEAL we should all strive for. we should be THANKING her. RAISING her up. not knocking her down with every breath.
i am ashamed today. that i didnt do more. that i didnt help. that i let the media, the men, the misogyny all go on without standing up. yesterday we let a man with no experience and a bad soul, take the place of a deserving woman. i dont care if you bought into the negativity. i dont care if you think she lied. or deleted email. that fact is, she did WHATEVER she did, in the service of her country. if you for one second think that kennedy, nixon, reagan, bush, the other clinton, the other bush, obama, kerry, schwarzkopf, condie or any number of other public servants have not LIED TO YOU in service to their country, you are blind or stupid. the reality is, our country is not ready for a female president. period. and you can argue with me all you want. but at least be honest with yourself.
we want women to be a feminine ideal. and we judge them way more harshly than any male counterpart. we as a society, still have so far to go.
The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, "It's a girl." ~Shirley Chisholm
so what i learned in 2016 goes something like this:
its okay to speak your mind, in whatever disparaging terms you choose - if you are a man
its okay to be wholly unqualified for the position you want - if you are a man
its okay to lie, and lie, and lie, and lie - but only if you are a man
our system is broken - if it doesnt work for me
our election is rigged - if i dont win
our media is corrupt - unless i agree with them
hate gets more press than love
negativity is more entertaining than positivity
people will literally believe ANYTHING on the internet
guns are more important than equal rights
bigotry is acceptable when couched in concern for our safety
boys will be boys is a perfectly fine justification for bad behavior
and in a good portion of our country, it is STILL 1965.
Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, "She doesn't have what it takes." They will say, "Women don't have what it takes." ~Clare Boothe Luce
if donald trump can throw his hat in the arena at 70, im pretty sure its not too late for most of us.
Because women's work is never done and is underpaid or unpaid or boring or repetitious and we're the first to get fired and what we look like is more important than what we do and if we get raped it's our fault and if we get beaten we must have provoked it and if we raise our voices we're nagging bitches and if we enjoy sex we're nymphos and if we don't we're frigid and if we love women it's because we can't get a "real" man and if we ask our doctor too many questions we're neurotic and/or pushy and if we expect childcare we're selfish and if we stand up for our rights we're aggressive and "unfeminine" and if we don't we're typical weak females and if we want to get married we're out to trap a man and if we don't we're unnatural and because we still can't get an adequate safe contraceptive but men can walk on the moon and if we can't cope or don't want a pregnancy we're made to feel guilty about abortion and... for lots of other reasons we are part of the women's liberation movement. ~Author unknown, quoted in The Torch, 1987 September 14th
